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LINCOLN CASTLE. 

(Addressed to the Lincoln Diocesan Architectural Society at their Meeting in June, 

1S75). 

By G. T. CLARK, ESQ. 

When " the devil looked over Lincoln," he is said to have 
smiled at man's costly devotion. But if the smile of the 
arch-enemy of mankind was,, as must be supposed, in deri- 
sion of man's attempts at pro^^ress, the occasion of it was 
singularly ill-chosen, for in the whole of Britain it would be 
difficult to find a tract for the well-being of which man has 
exerted himself so much and so successfully. Two thousand 
years ago, that broad but not unbroken plain which extends 
from the Wash to the Humber, from the Trent and the 
uplands of Nottingham and Derby to the German Ocean, 
was composed of arid heath and moorish fen, contributing 
httle to the material support of man, and probably nothing 
to his moral culture. Beasts of chase, fish, and water-fowl 
shared the territory with savage hordes, but little removed 
from the animals upon which they preyed. By slow degrees, 
by many generations of men, labouring through many cen- 
turies, great things have been achieved. The fen has been 
banked and drained, and the heath brought under culture, 
so that the whole expanse is now covered by green pastures 
and rich root-crops, and year after year the autumnal 
sun is reflected from broad fields waving with golden grain. 

Nor has the moral been behind the material progress. 
From the castled hill of Bel voir, to the rocks of Newark and 
Nottingham, and the crowned promontory of Lincoln, the 
land bristles with the works of man. The constructive taste 
and skill of many generations, and their deep religious 
feeling, are represented by a rich variet}'^ of ecclesiastical 
architecture, from the rude and primitive tower of Barton, 
to the lordly spires of Louth and Newark, and the glorious 
lanthorn of Boston ; churches and schools, mansion-houses 
and granges, " tower and village, dome and farm,' ai'e un- 

,'}' . . ....... ... 

1 fc' 



% LINCOLN CASTLE. 

mistakeable evidences of peace, prosperity, and civilization. 
There, too, are to be seen, not sparingly scattered, the 
sunken arch and ruined aisle, the ivy-covered remains, and 
richly-carved fragments, of many religious houses, making 
pleasant the study of hoar antiquity, and reminding us that 
there was a time when each was a centre of gospel truth, and 
of an early and beneficial civilization, the abode of men who 
did good work in their day, and founded by those who — -^ 

" Lov'd the Church so well, and gave so largely to it. 
They thought it should have canopied their bones 
Till Domesday." 

Something of all this is visible to mere mortal ken, and 
far more to him who adds to the material prospect a know- 
ledge of the past and the distant. It is true that the vision 
thus beheld from the guarded mount of Lincoln is not equal 
to that far wider and more noble outlook from a more exalted 
pinnacle, upon the description of which Milton has poured 
forth in one glittering roll the full stream of his learning, 
illuminated by the fire of his genius, but it is nevertheless 
one in which the student of the past may well take delight. 

Lincoln itself is thickly strewed with the footsteps of the 
past. The Briton, the Roman, the Saxon, the Dane, the 
Englishman, and the Norman, have successively been lords 
of the soil, and each has left his mark, either in material 
traces, or in a nomenclature still less liable to decay, A 
great historian, our chief authority also in matters of topo- 
graphy, has pronounced the earthworks to the north of the 
city to be of British origin. If this be so, they must be the 
work of those Romanised Britons who attempted, though in 
vain, to hold their country against the Picts and Scots, and 
the Scandinavian hordes from beyond the German Ocean, 
and who, while so striving, showed some considerable 
acquaintance with the Roman rules of castrametation, though 
unequal, it would seem, to the works in masonry for which 
that people was so celebrated. The conclusion that these 
earthworks are, if not Roman, post-Roman British, rests 
upon the fact that their outline is rectangular, and that the 
enclosure is bisected, nearly equally, by the Roman way. 

Of the earlier Britons, those dispossessed by the Romans, 
the traces are slight indeed, and probably confined to a few 
nearly effaced entrenclmients, and to the roots of such 



LINCOLN CASTLE. 3 

proper names as " Durnomagus," " Segelocum," " Bano- 
vallum," on the Bane river, and " Lindum," names which 
probably, hke " Eboracum " and " Londinum," represent an 
earher appellation. The mound at Risehohne, if sepulchral, 
may, of course, be of any age ; but the district, possess- 
ing but few of those grand features which are usually 
the earliest to receive their names, and the latest to lose 
them, has retained no very obvious traces of its primal 
inhabitants. 

Of their successors, the remains are of a very different 
character. The imperial mistress of the world left every- 
where traces of her sway not easily to be obliterated. Her 
measures of war were also calculated — pads imponere morcin. 
From the station at Lindum, great roads radiated in several 
directions, and preserved that facility of communication 
which civilised conquerors usually seek to establish. 

In the modern city of Lincoln, the Roman Lindum is well 
represented. The Roman walls, 10 to 12 ft. thick, and '20 
to 25 ft. high, included a nearly rectangular area, within 
which was the high ground of the upper city, and the slope 
from thence to the river, a space in length, north and south, 
1100 yards, and in breadth, at the upper end, 460 yards, 
and at the lower end, 590 yards. Of this enclosure, the 
northern or upper end was cut off by a cross wall, and 
formed the military quarter, 385 yards N., and south by an 
average of 517 yards E., and west. Of the four gates of the 
station, that to the north, upon the Ermine Street, still bears 
a name which must have descended from the time when it 
was first erected, and when it probably superseded an earlier 
structure, and is called the New-port. Of the opposite, or 
south gate, only one jamb remains. Of the east gate, the 
place is known, and a few of its very peculiar stones are 
built into the adjacent enclosures. The west gate was laid 
open a few years ago, but as the arch gave wa}'^ under the 
process, it was removed. Of the walls which connected 
these gates, some fragments remain. One lies west and 
another east of the north gate, and there is a considerable 
mass south of the north-east angle, capping which, the 
foundations of a round tower, of 9 ft. interior diameter, have 
been discovered. There is also a fragment of wall in the- 
slope of what is called the observatory mound, a little west 
of the remains of the south gate. The exterior ditch, also 



4 LINCOLN CASTLE. 

Roman, is in parts very perfect, broad and deep along the 
north front, and, though narrower, deep and well preserved 
about the north-east angle. There is also, within the area, 
a fragment of the wall of a considerable building, known, 
probably from its mediceval use, as the Mint. These Roman 
walls are all laid upon the natural ground, although the 
earth is more or less heaped up against their inner face as 
a ramp or terrace. 

The southern half of the Roman station is divided between 
the cathedral and the castle, the church, though the later 
occupant, taking the larger half. Some centuries, however, 
must have passed between the departure of the Romans 
and the throwing up of the earthworks of the castle, during 
which time the Roman walls were broken down, and their 
contained buildings laid waste, as is shown by the dilapi- 
dated condition of those remaining parts which have been 
found buried beneath the castle works. 

The English fortress is placed within the south-west 
quarter of the Roman station, and its outline, roughly four- 
sided, was no doubt governed by the lines of the two adjacent 
Roman walls. It stands on the crest of the steep slope, 
covered, as in Roman days, by the city, and descending 
about 200 ft. to the river. It is contained within a massive 
earth-bank, from 50 to 80 yards broad, and from 20 to 
30 ft. in height, internally of easy slope, externally steep, 
and which, though in substance within the Roman area, 
extends its skirts beyond the line of the wall, so that the 
Roman west gate was found buried within its substance, and 
a fragment of the south wall is still seen to rise through its 
slope. This bank measures, upon its north face, 180 yards, 
upon its south face 170 yards, its east 134 yards, and its 
west 163 yards. Here, as at York, it is evident not only 
that these earth- works are of post-Roman date, but that the 
Roman walls were completely ruined before the earth-works 
were thrown up. The enclosure may contain from six to 
seven acres. At the south-east angle the bank swells into 
and ends in a large conical mound, about 40 ft. high, and 
50 ft. diameter at the top. Besides this, there is a second 
and larger mound, about 40 ft. high, and 100 ft. diameter at 
the top, which was the citadel or Keep of the place, and the 
site of the hall of its English lord. This mound, though 
near the centre of the south front, was not a continuous 



LINCOLN CASTLE^ 5 

part of the regular earth-bank, which it here replaced. It 
had, as at Tamworth, Arundel, and elsewhere, its own proper 
circular ditch, communicating on the outside with, and form- 
ing a part of, the regular ditch of tlie place, as may yet be 
traced out, notwithstanding much filling up. 

It will thus be seen that Lincoln Castle, as regards its 
earthworks, belongs to that type of English fortress in which 
the mound has its proper ditch, and is placed on one side of 
an appended area, also with its bank and ditch. Such ai'e 
Windsor and Arundel, Berkhampstead and Tonbridge, on a 
large, and Laughton-en-le-Morthen and Barwick-in-Elmete, 
on a smaller scale. The general ai-ea, which at Windsor, 
Arundel, and Berkhampstead, is oblong, to suit the contour 
of the ground, is here, as at Tonbridge, Tickhill, and Clare, 
where the ground is not strongly marked, nearer to a more 
solid figure, of which, in this case, two sides and the con- 
tained angle are governed by the line of the old Roman 
^\^d\L In general these fortresses are much alike, and all 
belong to that class of burghs known to have been thrown 
up by the English in the ninth and tenth centuries, and at 
about the same time by the Scandinavian settlers in Nor- 
mandy. Two mounds, though not unknown, are uncommon. 
At Lewes there are two, one at each end of an oblong- 
enclosure. At Hereford, besides the keep mound, now 
removed, there is a mass of earth at the north-east corner 
of the outer area, a part of the bank, and at Cardiff, also, 
besides the keep mound, are two masses of earth upon the 
north-east and south-east corners of the enclosure, forming, 
which there the keep mound does not, a part of the bank. 
Such subordinate mounts are not uncommon in earthworks 
of all ages, and are totally distinct from the grand isolated 
moated mound which gives character to the earthworks 
of the ninth and tenth centuries, both in England and 
Normandy. 

When, in 1068, the Conqueror marched fi'om York to 
Cambridge, he paused at Lincoln, even then a very im- 
portant place, fenced in and pojjulous, not, indeed, as yet 
boasting a minster, but numbering 1150 inhabited houses, 
a leading member of the famous Danish civic confederation, 
and governed by twelve lawmen, who wielded powers else- 
where exercised by the territorial lords. As he traversed 
the entrenchment that covered the northern front, and 



6 LINCOLN CASTLE. 

entered the city through the strong Roman gateway, still in 
use, he could not but appreciate the strength and importance 
of the place, of which he seems to have been allowed to take 
peaceable possession. Here, as at York and Cambridge, he 
at once ordered the Enghsh stronghold to be converted into 
a Norman castle. What was the precise condition of the 
existing work, or what was immediately executed in obedience 
to William's order, we do not know ; there were, of course, 
defences either of timber or stone along the crest of the banks, 
and upon the summit of the mound ; but whether William 
merely directed these to be strengthened, or had them, re- 
placed by walls such as were coming into use in Normandy, 
does not appear ; probably the former, as time pressed ; 
there was much work of the same kind to execute all over 
England, and it was important to secure an immediate 
shelter for the Norman garrison. It is pretty clear, from 
the rapidity with which the chief castle at York was con- 
structed, and from its early destruction by fire, that timber 
entered largely into its composition ; and the lesser castle in 
that city, placed upon the Bayle Hill after the insurrection, 
and which was completed in a very few days, must have been 
wholly of that convenient material. That the 166 houses 
which we learn from Domesday were destroyed to make way 
for Lincoln Castle, were not removed to allow of the extension 
of its area, is certain, for the Norman walls stand upon the 
English banks. It is probable that during the long and 
prosperous reign of the Confessor, houses had been allowed 
to be built upon the slopes and glacis of the ditch, and, 
perhaps, actually within the fortress. This, of course, could 
not be tolerated, and is probably the removal recorded. 
But, if timber was employed, it was. of course, only until 
works in masonry could be erected, and whatever the Con- 
queror's officers may have actually executed, there can be 
but little doubt but that they or their immediate successors 
designed the gates, walls, and keep of the castle, as these 
now stand. 

The Norman Castle. — The castle is placed in the south- 
west quarter of the Roman station, high above the city and 
the valley of the Witham, which he to its south and east, 
and somewhat elevated, artificially, above the table land to 
its north and west. Its walled enceinte lies just within the 
Roman area, to the adjacent limits of which its southern 




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LINCOLN CASTLE. 7 

and western fronts are roughly parallel. The curtain wall, a 
very remarkable, and on the whole a very perfect work, is 
built upon the ridge or central line of the earth-bank, and 
therefore contains the same space, and is in circuit about 
650 yards ; it is from 8 to 10 ft. thick, and 30 to 35 or even 
40 ft. high, exhibiting much herring-bone work, and cer- 
tainly of Norman date. Opposite to the great mound, 
where the earth-banks cease, the wall is continued across 
the ditch and up the slope of the mound, as at Tamworth 
and Tonbridge. To enable it to reach the level of the 
battlements of the Keep, it is raised by steps to the point of 
junction, and there contains chambers which will be more 
conveniently described with the Keep. 

In tlie wall are two principal gates, one to the east, open- 
ing into the upper city, opposite to the Exchequer Gate of 
the Close, and the other to the west, opening direct into the 
field. Besides these is a small door opening towards the 
south upon the lower city, and a door in the Keep in the 
same direction. 

The east or main entrance is placed in the east wall at 
about 40 yards from its south-east angle. The west gate 
stands in the west wall, about 30 yards from the north-west 
angle, which length is thrown back at a very obtuse angle, 
probably to avoid the remains of the Roman west gate, 
which stood about four yards in front of it. Both gates are 
of Norman date, and were oi'iginally much alike, each being 
a plain arch, placed in a rectangular bay or recess in the 
wall, 18 ft. wide by 10 ft. deep, instead of, as was more 
usual, in a regular square gatehouse, as at Tickhill, Por- 
chester, and Sherborne. The bay may have been closed in 
the rear by a cross-wall with a second archway, of which 
there is an indication at the west gate. There was an upper 
chamber wfth a timber floor. At the east gate the arch is 
full-centred, of 14 ft. opening, without chamfer or rebate, or 
ornament of any kind. Probably tliere is a portcullis 
groove, but if so it is blocked up and completely concealed 
by the woodwork of the modern doors. It is certain that 
the main entrance of a Norman castle could never have been 
so constructed that there should be no rebate against which 
the door should be pressed when closed, and probably the 
fitting was composed of a ring of stones inserted, as in the 
doorway in the cross-wall of Rochester keep, without bond, 



8 LINCOLN CASTLE. 

into the exterior arch. Over the door is a pointed win- 
dow, probably an early English or early Decorated inser- 
tion. Later in the Decorated period, this gateway has been 
masked by a front containing a bold equilateral arch, 
springing from two angular corbels, behind which the 
ISiorman doorway is seen. Above, the two outer angles are 
capped by two round turrets, corbelled out of the angle and 
rising about 6 ft., and between them the curtain projects at 
a low angle, the salient being over the entrance. The 
arrangement is unusual, but the effect is good. It is said 
that the turrets contained staircases, ascending from the 
upper floor to the battlements, but they are not now acces- 
sible ; there were lateral walls projecting forward from each 
s.de of the entrance. Across the ditch, and between them, 
was the drawbridge, traces of the recesses for working which 
still remain. The entrance was flanked by two stone lions, 
of one of which a fragment is preserved in the castle ; the 
interior additions to this gate are entirely modern. 

The west gate, of the same age and pattern, has fortu- 
nately been long walled up, and so has escaped alteration. 
Here the portcuUis groove is exposed to view, and there is 
a rebate for the door, though concealed by the cross wall. 
Here also is what looks like the springing of an arch across 
the inner face of the bay, though Norman mural towers were 
sometimes, as at Ludlow, left open, to be closed only with 
brattice- work. The upper floor has two small Norman 
windows in front, and a small door, flat-headed, but with a 
round-headed arch of relief; this opened upon the battle- 
ments of the barbican. Of this barbican, which was com- 
posed of two flanking walls and an outer gate, the north 
wall remains and part of the south. The wall rises to the 
level of the upper floor of the gatehouse, projects about 30 ft. 
and is 7 ft. thick. The masonry is evidently of the date of 
the gateway, and contains some herring-bone work. The ap- 
proach must have been very steep, the sill of the gate being 
some feet above the level of the counterscarp. 

Another work' of Norman date is a rectangular tower, 
about 25 ft. by 40 ft., placed upon the summit of the south- 
eastern mound ; it is of two floors, vaulted, and chiefly built 
in ashlar ; it contains a good straight mural staircase. To 
the Norman work has been added, in the Decorated Period, 
a iront, upon the east face, also of two floors, flanked by two 



LINCOLN CASTLE. 9 

square turrets, bringing up the whole tower to a square of 
40 ft. The pecuHarity of this tower is, that, instead of 
flanking the curtain, it is set back a httle from its line. 
A modern gazebo has been added above, and the whole is 
dignified by the name of the Observatory. 

In the curtain, at the foot of the Observatory mount, and 
betw'een it and the Keep, is a pointed arch of relief, and below 
it, beneath a rude flat lintel, composed of two large stones, 
is a small door, either never opened, or closed at a very 
early period. This arch is certainly late Norman, and seems 
of the same date with that part of the curtain in which it is 
imbedded. 

The Keep, also Norman, is an unusually perfect example 
of a shell keep. It is in plan a somewhat irregular polygon, 
64 ft. north and south by 74 ft. east and west, diameters 
within the walls, which are about 8 ft. thick. Within, ;t has 
twelve sides, of irregular lengths. Without, are fifteen, and 
each angle is capped with a broad flat pilaster, all rising 
from a common plinth. About tw^o-thirds of the height 
thei-e is a set-off, common to wall and pilaster ; the latter 
has also a bold roll moulding. The wall is 20 ft, hiiih to 
the rampart walk. The parapet is gone. The Keep stands 
upon the line of the curtain, which abuts upon it at opposite 
sides ; so dividing it that there are eight facets outside and 
seven inside. The main entrance is by a full-centi-ed arch 
of 7 ft. opening, set in a broad, projecting buttress or pilaster 
towards the north-east. The arch of the actual doorway 
and of its inner recess is segmental. There was no port- 
cullis, and the door had a stout wooden bar. Above the 
outer arch is a hood-moulding with a light Norman orna- 
ment, said to be a restoration from the original. At present 
a straight steep flight of steps leads up to the door, and 
these, though modern, probably represent the original mode 
of approach. There is another and smaller door, diagonally 
opposite to the main door, to the south-w^est ; this is quite 
])lain, the arches all segmental, the outer boldly splayed. 
The opening is 5 ft. 6 in. wide. There are traces of some- 
thing like a thii'd door in the eastern face outside the curtain, 
opening from a bay in the wall. Opposite to this, in the 
west wall, is another bay, also 12 ft. wide, but no trace of an 
opening. There are no loops in the wall of the Keep, no 
trace of any buildings within its area, nor have any founda- 



10 LINCOLN CASTLE. 

tions been discovered there. It is prett}? clear that any 
accommodation provided there was by means of timber struc- 
tures placed against the wall, as at York, leaving an open 
court in the centre. There are indications, on the masonry, 
of an upper floor. Where the two curtains join the Keep, each 
contains, at its rampart level, a mural chamber, about 6 ft. 
wide by 12 ft. long, the floor of which is about 10 or 12 ft. 
from the ground. These chambers are choked with brambles 
and not accessible, but they have no door towards the ram- 
parts of the curtain, and seem to have been entered from the 
upper part of the Keep ; that to the west is a garderobe, 
and has a loop and shoot upon the north or inner face ; 
the other has a loop only, and that outwards ; one of them 
is said to have been groined and vaulted ; the vaults spring- 
ing from columns in the angles. This is probably that 
towards the east, and it may have been an oratory, as at 
Arundel. 

The above works, curtain, gateways, Observatory tower, 
and Keep contain the only Norman masonry now extant. 
The curtain, for its great length, is singularly deficient in 
flanking towers. At the south-west angle the wall has been 
laid open by a wide breach, and built up, and there may 
have been a tower, but it is more probable that here was 
the junction with the city wall. 

Generally, the lower two-thirds of the curtain look much 
older than the upper part, and the hue of junction is very 
mieven, as though the wall had long been left in a ruinous 
condition. This may have been so, but as there is no diminu- 
tion in the excessive thickness, it seems more probable that 
the new work is confined to the facing, No doubt when the 
castle was taken by the county much was done to the walls, 
but they could scarcely, at that time, have been much lower 
than they are now, for to rebuild them at their present 
thickness would have been a great and quite unnecessary 
expense. 

The herring-bone work is of a superficial character, con- 
fined to the facing ; not, as in the Roman work, carried 
through the substance of the wall. Mr. Wilson, in his paper 
on this castle, states that when the foundations of the cur- 
tain were laid open during some repairs, they were found to 
be worked in with a sort of framework of timber, tieing the 
whole together. Such a precaution was often taken by the 



LINCOLN CASTLE, 11 

Norman builders, even to the extent of enclosing ties in the 
superstructure, especially where the work was laid upon 
made ground. The cavities left by the decay of such ties 
are seen at Rochester, Dinas Powis, and Brunlaise. 

There is a flanking tower capping the north-east angle of 
the place, an insertion, though whether replacing a Norman 
structure is not known. It is called " Cobbe Hall," and is 
in plan very slightly horseshoe, wqth prolonged sides and a 
square rear. It is in breadth 25 ft., and in length 40 ft. It 
has a basement and fii-st floor, both covered in with acutely 
pointed vaulting, with deeply splayed loops towards the 
field. The basement is reached by a trap-door and ladder, 
and the upper floor and battlements by a stone stair. It 
seems from the rings let into the wall to have been a prison. 
It has been called a chapel, probably because its round or 
apsidal end looks towards the north-east. 

There is a deep well in the north side of the great. en- 
closure, still in use, and the bottom of which has recently 
been enharged into a cistern. The castle stands upon the 
oolite rock, and is mainly built of that material, laid as 
roughly-coursed rubble, but the Keep, tlie Observatory 
Tower, and the Decorated work are mostly of ashlar. 

It is difficult to form a decided opinion as to the age of 
the several works in masonry remaining in this castle. The 
two gateways and much of the curtain, especially its north 
and west sides, are probably efiily Norman. The Keep and 
Observatory Tower are later in the same style. To judge 
from the little postern ; the curtain between the Observatory 
mount and the Keep, and probably the part beyond it, are 
also late Norman, that is to say the English defences of the 
Keep were the last to be replaced, and it was a century 
before the isolation of its mound was broken by the carrying 
the curtain across its ditches, and the completion of the 
general enceinte. Altogether it seems probable that the 
lower stage of the two gateways, and the ohler part of the 
curtain, were constructed during the reign of the Conqueror, 
or, at any rate, before the close of the eleventh century. 
The Keep and Observatory Tower were probably built, the 
upper floor of the gateways added, and the curtain raised 
and completed, in the reign of Stephen, who granted, with 
the castle and city of Lincoln, to Gernons Earl of Chester, 
licence to fortify a tower in the castle, and to hold it until 



13 LINCOLN CASTLE. 

he recovered his own castle of Tickhill, and even then, when 
he surrendered Lincoln, he was to retain his own tower, 
which his mother, Countess Lucia, had fortified, in the 
castle, of which also he w^as to retain the hereditary con- 
stableship. As the Keep was the only part of the castle 
which could be held independently of the rest, it must be to 
it that the charter relates. It is curious that Tickhill should 
also have a mound and polygonal keep. 

As to the later works, Cobbe Hall, and the additions to 
the Observatory Tower and the eastern gateway, are pro- 
bably the w^ork of Thomas of Lancaster, Earl of I^incoln, who 
held the castle from 1312 to 1322. The Pipe Roll of 2nd 
John, A.D. 1200, records a charge of £20 by the Constable 
of Lincoln Castle for the repairs of the New Tower, probably 
the Keep. 

The additions directed by the Conqueror to the defences 
of the hill, already strong by nature and by art, rendered 
Lincoln, under the Norman dynasty, even a more important 
city than it had been under the eai-lier governments. Its 
castle was the almost impregnable fortress held by or for 
the sovereign, of a very important division of England ; 
but it was a division strong in its rivers and marshy ground, 
in its English and thoroughly disaffected feeling, and open to 
the visits of the Danes, no longer as enemies, but as allies to 
the cause of the people. Its position, dominating the whole 
shire, challenged comparison with Belvoir, which received a 
similar accession of strength, and Nottingham, on the brow 
of which a rectangular keep of the first class was then in 
progress ; but what confirmed its central authority, and 
placed it far above any castled eminence of the counties of 
the Midland, was the recognition of the hill as the centre 
of an important bishopric, and the foundation by Remigius 
of the stately pile to which many succeeding centuries have 
added beauty and grandeur. 

The castle long remained a part of the demesne of the 
Crown, but was administered by constables, whose office 
was, at times, regarded as hereditary, and, on one very 
important occasion, was held by a lady. Always a strong 
position, it became especially valuable upon the death of 
Henry I., when the long civil war broke out between his 
daughter and his nephew, and by one party or the other 
all existing castles were strengthened, and an immense 



LINCOLN CASTLE. 13 

number of new ones built. In such a state of anarchy a 
castle became a necessary of life, and the bishops vied with, 
and even surpassed, the lay barons in their examples of 
military architecture. Sherborne, Malmesbury, and the 
strong and magnificent Devizes, were the work of Bishop 
Roger of Salisbury, as were Newark and Sleaford of his 
nephew, Alexander of Lincoln ; and the castle of Ely, of 
Giles, another nephew, and prelate of that see. Durham, 
also, was held by its bishop, and the Close of Lichfield 
strongly entrenched. 

Of the lay adherents of Matilda, Robert Earl of Glou- 
cester, her wise and faithful brother, built the castles of 
Cardiff, Bristol, and Gloucester ; Fitz-Alan held Shrewsbury ; 
D'Albini, Arundel ; Talbot, Hereford ; Paganel, Ludlow ; 
Brian Fitz-Count, Wallingford ; D'Oyley, Oxford ; Robert 
of Lincoln, Wareham ; Mohun, Dunster ; Lovel, Castle 
Gary ; Mandeville, Walden and Plessis ; and Fitz-John, 
Melton. Dover, much strengthened by Maminot, was sur- 
rendered to the queen. It is curious that of all these 
castles, six only, Sherborne, Bristol, Ludlow, Walden, and 
Dover, with Hedingham, held by De Vere for Stephen, are 
certainly known to have had square keeps ; of the others, 
seven are doubtful, but thirteen had shell keeps upon mounds. 

Among those who at first adhered to the cause of Stephen 
were the two half-brothers, William de Roumare and 
Ranulph Earl of Chester, who had hereditary claims upon 
a large Lincolnshire property, and, of some sort, upon the 
castle of Lincoln. These, as regarded the castle, were 
exercised mainly by the Earl of Chester, the younger, but, 
in England at least, the most powerful of the two. 

Their claims dated from a period before the Conquest, 
and were no doubt connected with the ownership of the 
English fortress. Aelgar Earl of Mercia, son of Earl 
Leofric, and lord of mau}^ Lincolnshire lordships, was 
father of the well-known Earls Edwyne and Morker, and of 
Ealdgyth, widow of Gryffydd of Wales, and afterwards of 
Harold, and of Lucia, or Lucy, the eventual heiress of the 
family, and as such claiming not only the Lincolnshire 
lands but, as it seems, the hereditary constableship of the 
castle. Mr. Nichols, in a very valuable paper upon the 
earls of Lincoln, has shown that Lucy married Ivo Taillc- 
bois, one of the Conqueror's barons, a hero both of histoi-y 



14 LINCOIiN CASTLE. 

and romance, and, in right of his wife, a great landowner 
in Lincolnshire. Her name occurs in his charter in 1085 
concerning the church of Spalding. Ivo died in 1114, and 
their daughter, another Lucy, an heiress or co-heiress, and 
who claimed the constableship of Lincoln Castle, and forti- 
fied one of its towers, married first, Roger de Roumare, 
and second, Ranulph de Briquesard, called Le Meschines 
or the younger, Earl of Chester, who died 1129. By each 
she had a son. (1) William de Roumare, afterwards Earl 
of Lincoln ; and (2) Ranulph, called Gernons, Earl of 
Chester. These two half-brothers, unstable and greedy 
politicians and soldiers, played considerable parts in the 
war of the succession, and had much to say to Lincoln 
Castle. 

Early in the struggle in 1140, Stephen acknowledged the 
claim of De Roumare, and created him one of his earls, 
called in derision " pseudo-comites," because they had not 
the usual third penny from a county. Notwithstanding 
this favour, however, the brothers, a few days or weeks 
afterwards took the castle of Lincoln by surprise, turned out 
the royal soldiers, and held it for Matilda. Stephen, highly 
incensed, marched at once to Lincoln, and, supported by the 
citizens, laid siege to the castle from the west front, that 
next the city, but on which the ground was less steep than 
within the city itself. Earl Ranulph, on this, escaped from 
the place, leaving it, with his wife and children, in charge 
of De Roumare, while he went to persuade his brother-in- 
law, Robert Earl of Gloucester, to come to their rescue. 
Robert accordingly led a force of 10,000 men in that 
direction, and the two earls, fording or swimming the 
Trent and the marsh lands on its margin, were met by the 
king in person. The result was the Battle or " Joust 
of Lincoln," fought on the 2nd of February, 1141, in 
which Stephen was taken, to be exchanged a short time 
afterwards for Eail Robert. Mr. Nichols has pointed out 
that a certain Gilbert de Gant, a young Lincolnshire noble, 
being taken in the battle, was married by the Earl of 
Chester to his niece Rohesia, and was also created Earl of 
Lincoln, which title he retained till his death, in 1156. 
Mr. Nichols suggests that Rohesia was probably a sister's 
daughter, and a co-heiress of Lucy Taillebois the first, and 
therefore a co-heir of Earl Aelgar. 



LINCOLN CASTLE. 15 

William de Roumare left a son, who died before him, and 
the grandson, though hohling a large Lincolnshire estate, 
and in i-ank an earl, never assumed the title of Lincoln. 
He died childless, 1198, and the title of Lincoln seems to 
have been dropped for a time, Alice, Earl Gilbert's daughter 
and heiress, being styled only " Countess Alice, daughter of 
Earl Gilbert." 

In 1144, also at Christmas, Earl Ranulph was a second 
time besieged in Lincoln Castle by King Stephen, and also 
without success ; but two years later, he, being at the king's 
court, was made prisoner, and had to give up the castle as 
his ransom. Once fairly in possession of it, Stephen caused 
himself to be crowned at Lincoln. 

Li 1147 their positions were reversed, and the city was 
attacked by the earl, but without success, and in 1151 he 
became a second time Stephen's prisoner, and so continued 
a few months, until at the pacification of Wallingford, in 
1151, he was set free, included in the general amnesty, 
and received from Stephen the grant of the city and castle 
already noticed, to be held until Tickhill should be restored 
to him. 

During the reign of Henry XL the Crown recovered much 
of its power, and Lincoln Castle seems to have been dis- 
sociated from the earldom, although the Earl of Chester 
preserved a hold upon it. Richard de Hay held the con- 
stableship in fee, and it descended to his daughter and 
heiress, Kicholaa, who married Gerald de Camville, who 
received from Richard L the custody of the castle and the 
farm of the revenues of the county. Gerard, however, was 
a partizan of Prince John, and stood a siege in the castle 
from Longchamp, chancellor to the absent Richard. The 
castle was relieved by John, but Gerard lost his office and 
farm in 1194, until John became king. His widow, 
Nicholaa, held the castle for the king against the insurgent 
lords. After the war. King John visited Lincoln, and 
Nicholaa, then of great age, received him at the east gate 
of the castle, and offered him the keya, desiring to be 
relieved on account of her age. John gracefully requested 
her to retain the keys, and she continued in command 
through the reign of John, and into that of Henry his son. 
Nicholaa was sheriff of the county, and a very remarkable 
person. In her latter days she had an assistant assigned to 



16 LINCOLN jCASTLE. 

her, and a manor to support the charges of her office. She 
filially reth'ed, and died m 1231. 

In 1216, towards the close of John's reign, Gilbert de 
Gant, nephew to the former Earl of Lincoln of the same 
name, condescended to accept the titular rank at the hands 
of the invading French Prince Louis, and took the city, but 
not the castle. He fought and was taken at the " Fair of 
Lincoln," in May, 1217, by Ranulph de Blondville Earl of 
Chester, a man of small stature but a great soldier, who 
added the title of Lincoln to that of Chester four days after 
the battle, and held it until he resigned it to his sister, 
Hawise de Quincy, in 1232, The actual relief introduced 
into the castle before the battle was led by the notorious 
Fulk de Breaute. 

The descent of the constableship of the castle is at this 
point rather obscure. It seems, probably during the 
minority of De Camville's daughter and heiress, Idonea, to 
have been administered successively by Philip de Lascelles, 
Walter Evermue, and, in 1224, by William de Longespee 
Earl of Salisbury, probably as having married Idonea, 
daughter and heiress of Gerard de Camville. Whether 
their son William, who died 1257, held it is uncertain, but 
whatever rights he had were united to those of the Earls of 
Lincoln by the marriage of his daughter and heiress, Mar- 
garet Longespee, to Henry de Lacy. Henry was descended 
from Hawise de Quincy, whose daughter Mai'garet carried 
the earldom to her husband John de Lacy, who died 
1240. Their son, Edmond, did not live to inherit, but his 
son, Henry de Lacy, was Earl of Lincoln, and by his 
marriage with Margaret Longespee, earl also of Salisbury. 
In the Escheat Roll, 4th Edward II., he is entered as con- 
stable of the castle of Lincoln. 

Alice, the daughter and heiress of Henry de Lacy, mar- 
ried Thomas Earl of Lancaster, and, in her right, of Lincoln, 
grandson of Henry HI., and thus both the constableship and 
the fee of the castle became absorbed in the Duchy of Lan- 
caster, and so in the Crown. During the wars of Charles 
and the Parliament, the castle was held as a militai-y post 
for the king. In 1644 it fell, with the city, into the hands 
of the Parliament, and finally, in 1832, was sold to the 
county. 

Tiie Pipe and Close Rolls contain many entries in the 



LINCOLN CASTLE. 17 

reigns of Henry II., Richard I., John, and Henry III., 
relating to the castle, sometimes for repairs, sometimes for 
manacles for prisoners, sometimes for sustentation of 
soldiers. There are orders for storing corn, for " balistse 
ad strumum " and " ad turnum," the former worked by 
hand, the latter by a winch. In 1225, we read of repairs 
to the gate of the castle, to the " Tour de Luce," and to the 
barbican. Even in Domesday, we have Waldin, ingeniator ; 
Heppo, balistarius ; and Ody, arbalistarius. 



in I wr I-UPIIjKESS 



019 830 855 9 



